I Prefer the Other

When I was in the WPF program the first time, one of my assigned readings was Poppy Z. Brite’s Lost Souls. I remember only two things about the book: 1) her writing was beautiful—flowing, lyrical, almost hypnotizing at times; 2) it was a good thing her writing was so magnificent because her plot was nonexistent. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

I realized something about myself as a reader at that moment. For me to enjoy a book it had to have one of two things—it either had to have great writing or an enjoyable plot. It did not have to have both, but at least one had to be present. Further examination supports this.

Dracula—I am NOT a fan of Victorian writing. That’s why, with the exception of A Christmas Carol, I don’t particularly care for Dickens. I find the Victorian writing style to be verbose and distracting. However, I love the plotline of Dracula, and therefore enjoy the book.

Frankenstein—For many of the same reasons that I am not a fan of Victorian literature, I am also not a fan of much Romantic literature (although I like it much better than I do Victorian). However, the intricacies of this plotline and the still-relevant themes of this novel make me a fan.

The Great Gatsby—On the opposite end of the scale, while I have never been a huge enthusiast of the plot of this novel, I absolutely love F. Scott Fitzgerald’s writing. His imagery, his use of words, his flow often leave me in a state of awe.

In more modern works, I could point to Jeffery Deaver as an example of a writer whose prose is, in my opinion, only fair, but whose plots rivet me, or Cormac McCarthy whose writing style is not my favorite, but whose stories are truly remarkable. On the other side, there is Stephen King. While I usually find both his writing AND his plots to be exceptional, there have been a few books (The Tommyknockers comes to mind) that I feel have had so-so plots. Nevertheless, I will read anything that man writes because his mastery of the language and his skills as a writer are exceptional.

Which brings me to Grave’s End.

I think my problem with “true” ghost stories is that I neither get the compelling story nor the exceptional writing. While I have read some exceptional fiction ghost stories in my time (The Shining, Bag of Bones, The Haunting of Hill House, Hell House, The House Next Door), because I don’t believe in ghosts and/or hauntings, I read true ghost stories with a “Yeah, whatever…” attitude. Their storylines are typically not believable or compelling to me. I can accept the ghost story in fiction because I am not necessarily expected to believe it is true anymore than I would be expected to believe any other monster exists. But “true” ghost stories destroy my suspension of disbelief before I even start reading. My first thought is, “These people were high.” Couple that with the fact that these stories are often written by people who are NOT writers (and therefore they’re not written very well), and the whole thing becomes a negative experience.

(I should point out here that it is not the “true story” aspect that bothers me. I am a huge fan of true crime novels, even poorly written ones, because the story intrigues me.)

As I read Grave’s End, my predominant emotion was annoyance. First, I was annoyed by the writer’s use of the word “so.” I was so scared. I wanted so much to be strong. My daughter was so beautiful and mature. And on and on and on. It was so irritating. Could she be more vague? HOW scared were you? How much did you want it? How beautiful was she?

I also frequently became annoyed at the patronizing tone of the author. There were places where she went into minute detail about things that I would think most people would know. For instance, when she was talking about the different attitudes between Manhattan and Brooklyn, she seemed to assume that her audience was comprised of total morons. While I understood the need for her to explain that Brooklyn and Manhattan, although part of the same city, were distinct in values, I felt it was totally unnecessary for her to go into the explanation of how the city is divided into boroughs. I think most relatively intelligent people (as well as anyone who has watched Law & Order) know that there are different boroughs in New York. Her assumption that she needed to explain that insulted me. I felt a similar sensation when she explained the game Simon (although, to be fair, I suppose younger readers may not remember that game, and so the explanation would be appropriate for them).

Not only was she patronizing to the readers, but I also felt she had an extremely condescending view of her daughters. She commented several times about her “nearly-grown” daughters. While I recognize that at that point in the story, her youngest was still a teen, her oldest was at least 20 years old. I got news for her. That’s not “nearly grown”; that’s grown. Along similar lines, she talks about her older daughter being too young to be cynical and mentions letting her “stay home from school” and writing her an “excuse” on the day of the “cleansing.” By my calculations, her older daughter would be at least a junior in college at that point, but she is still acting as if the girl is in middle school. I’m thinking it’s time to cut the umbilical cord, hon.

My biggest issue with this story, though, is the total inaction of the characters. I’m pretty sure the Amityville story is a total fake, but I’ll give the Lutzes credit—at least they got the hell out. Not only that, but they also tried to do research and tried to get help. I had a really hard time finding any sympathy for this woman. From her bad marriage to her “haunted” house, she was a doormat waiting to be stepped on. Why did she wait 12 years to research the history of the house (If I thought I were living in a haunted house, I’d be researching the hell out of it)? Why did she wait 12 YEARS to get “help”? It seemed like all she could do was hide and cower and snivel and whine and turn to men for any sense of security. That is not a person I can relate to or feel empathy for.

Maybe if the people had taken a more active stance or if I could have had more sympathy for Elaine, I would have felt differently about the story, but I doubt it. I am a skeptic. I can’t imagine reading any “true” haunted house or ghost story without tearing it apart.